The Moorside Nuclear Power Station is a proposed power station to be build near Sellafield on the northwest coast of the Cumbrian state of the United Kingdom. Three AP1000 nuclear power reactors are planned to be built by NuGeneration (NuGen), the British subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Company which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Toshiba, the Japanese company. The plan was to acquire the necessary permits and licenses by 2018 followed by site preparation by 2020. The plant was supposed to come online in 2024.
NuGen is a joint venture between Japan’s Toshiba and France’s Engie with Toshiba holding sixty percent and Engie holding forty percent. These two companies have a great deal of experience in the construction of nuclear power plants and they chose the AP1000 reactor design from Westinghouse Electric Company.
Last October, the U.K. National Grid announced plans to spend three billion four hundred million dollars to connect the planned plant in Cumbria to the nation’s electrical network. The announcement was followed by ten weeks of consultation with stakeholders.
On February 14th of this year, Toshiba said that it was withdrawing from nuclear power reactor projects outside of Japan due to serious financial problems but NuGen said on the same day Toshiba remained dedicated to the Moorside project. NuGen said that it had always planned to use an independent contractor to build the Moorside reactors.
On March 30th of this year, the AP1000 reactor design successfully completed the Generic Design Assessment process in the U.K. Unfortunately for the project, Westinghouse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 29th. Toshiba has announced that it may report an operating loss of eight billion four hundred million dollars for 2016-1017 financial year which ends on March 31st.
On April 4th of this year, Engie said that it was going to exercise it right under contract to require that Toshiba purchase all of the forty percent of the shares that Engie held in NuGen.
Today NuGeneration (NuGen) has stated that it will conduct a strategic review of the project. In response, representatives for the National Grid said "NuGen has announced it is conducting a strategic review to look at its ownership and technology vendor. NuGen is confident this review will lead to an outcome that provides a more robust, stable and sustainable platform to meet its commitment to deliver the next generation of nuclear power. As a result of focusing their efforts on this review, NuGen are pausing work on their development consent order for Moorside. In light of this, we have decided to pause our work to consent NuGen's connection and take the time to understand NuGen's program to make sure our projects are aligned. It is important that we make sure the consents run broadly in parallel, so the Planning Inspectorate can examine the consent application for our connection knowing there is a strong need for it.”
"Despite this pause, we are confident the connection will still be ready when NuGen requires it and are continuing to work closely with them. We would like to thank people and stakeholders once again for all their efforts in responding to our previous consultation. We will let you know more about how we are developing our connection as soon as we are able."
The National Grid proposal for connecting the Moorside plant to the nation’s electrical grid took into account the Lake District National Park. The plan called for putting lines underground and taking down pylons in the Park. The plan also included putting lines in a tunnel under Morecambe Bay. They also proposed taking down existing pylons and replacing them with fewer, taller pylons. The suspended plan called for submitting an application to the appropriate federal agency with construction starting in 2019 if the application was approved. The connection to the National Grid was supposed to take place in 2024.
Now that Toshiba and Westinghouse financial problems have called the whole power plant project into question, NuGen is going to review various options for moving forward with the project. They admit that it is critical that any new plans also be acceptable to all the stakeholders involved in the project.
